Meals From the Pantry: "Pop Stars"

June 27, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

It feels like it's been forever since I've written anything here, but I guess the last post was only a couple weeks ago. Our schedules in June are always overflowing, so we've been a bit preoccupied. My other job is as a private instructor for piano and singing, and my husband is the youth pastor of our local church, so our lives pretty much revolve around the school year with June bringing it all to a close. As our summer begins, so does a bit of a rest period - we're still very busy, but we can focus on tasks for ourselves, visiting family, and working on our writing projects (this blog for me, and a masters degree for him).

In all the craziness, I've actually been keeping up with the garden and foraging fairly well. I'm worried that I've missed all the elderflower again, but you can't always get everything. I've been making this little recipe quite a bit, and I thought I'd share it within that "meals from the pantry" category I was writing recipes for a while back. With the coming onslaught of berries, and summer fruit, jam making season is about to hit in full swing, so I've been thinking of recipes to use up what we still haven't eaten.

I also wanted to share a recipe that after making lots of pies has become my go-to recipe for an amazing pie crust. I feel like everyone should have a fantastic pie crust recipe in their back pocket and this one is so easy to remember you don't even need a recipe.

Lady grey tea pie crust cut into star shapes.

I think of these as tiny pop tarts. And because they are shaped like stars (this is completely optional, but usually too cute a result for me to pass up doing it any other way), I've been calling them "pop stars". I started doing these partially as a way to use up my overstock of jam, and partially because I don't like wasting the crust that gets trimmed when making a large pie. In the past I'd just roll it out, cut into rectangles, and then spoon in some jam, or applesauce, or other filling like that. A little while back, I thought my star shaped cookie cutter was probably large enough to use for this, and now I can't go back to my boring old rectangles anymore. Even though I normally make this from excess crust, it would be perfect to make up a batch of pie crust just to make these. I promise they are much easier to make than you'd think.

Pop Stars

For the Crust

2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Sugar (optional: grind lady grey or other tea into the sugar using mortar and pestle)
1 cup Cold Butter
Very Cold Water

Takes 30 minutes, yield depends on amount of crust made and size of shapes cut.

Instructions

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
Cut butter into 1 inch (but don't be so precise here - the measurement is just to give you a workable size) chunks, and place it all into the dry ingredients.
Work the butter into your dry ingredients using your fingertips. I've used a pastry cutter before, or two knives, but I haven't found anything that gives a better result than just getting your hands in there and being able to control the texture by feel. You want to smoosh the butter chunks into the flour so that they make flakes. Don't incorporate it all too much. The butter melting and creating steam as the pastry bakes is what gives you the flaky texture, so if you have some larger flakes in there that is actually a good thing. Don't spend so long trying to make this perfect that your butter gets soft either - working quickly is the name of the game.
Sprinkle your water tablespoon by tablespoon over the mixture, stirring lightly with a fork between each tablespoon. Watch as it slowly incorporates into a cohesive dough, but stop adding water when you can tell that it will be sticky enough to come together to make a ball. Don't worry if you don't get this quite right the first time. Keep trying and eventually you'll know what to look and feel for.
If you are not rolling your pie crust out right away wrap it well and store it in the fridge.

To Make the Pop Stars

Jam (a thicker consistency will make these much easier to work with. In the ones above I used roasted rhubarb that I canned last year)
Pie crust from above recipe or leftover from making another pie
1 egg
Splash of Milk

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 415 degrees Fahrenheit.
Beat egg with a splash of milk until homogenous
Roll out your dough and cut into desired shapes. Since these are small cookies-type-things, I don't find the texture is impacted too much by re-rolling the scraps to get more yield out of the dough recipe, so feel free to do so if you don't want to waste anything. You'll want to make sure you cut an even amount of shapes so each has both a bottom and a top.
Count how many pieces you ended up with, and brush half of them with the egg mixture.
Spoon some jam into the middle of each egg washed piece. Go really easy here. For mine which are only about 3 inches from tip to tip I only put about a teaspoon in the middle of each. If you add too much it will all spill out and you'll get a sticky, caramelized mess.
Cover them all with your top pieces, and press the edges down carefully. You may need to stretch them slightly to make sure all your jam is covered.
Crimp the edges with a fork - you want a really good seal here otherwise you'll have the sticky caramelized/burnt mess I mentioned earlier.
Stab the tops of each a couple times with your fork to give some vents for the steam from the filling to escape while they are baking.
Brush some more of the egg wash over the tops after they are all ready, and sprinkle liberally with sugar.
Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment (another safeguard against the potential for leaked filling - I know from too much experience that it is VERY hard to clean burnt jam off) and bake for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden, and the edges are crispy.

Meals From the Pantry: Strawberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Chamomile

May 04, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

I am getting to the point where the garden is coming to life, and I am harvesting quite a few wild plants so the recipes here are going to start to focus on more seasonal ingredients, but I wanted to post one more recipe to my Meals from the Pantry series before fully switching gears. While Frozen yogurt might not strike you as a "use up what you already have" type of recipe, the key ingredient here is jam or preserves, and I have quite a bit of that from the past canning season to use up!

I love making jam.

There's just something about commingling the different flavours that I really enjoy. I like to add unexpected herbs, or combine flavours you might not have thought of. Marisa McLellan's Food In Jars was my gateway to creative preserving, while still keeping all the guidelines for safe food preservation in the forefront. If you are going to do something like this, it is very important hat you make sure you follow the protocols to keep whoever is eating your preserves safe from botulism and other issues. One problem with my love of making jam is that I have now made so much more than I or my family can ever eat! I have given some away, but I am still left with quite a backlog, so I've been trying to think of different ways to use it all up. One day it struck me: frozen yogurt!

I used an ice cream maker, because I have one that I love, but there are methods out there for freezing ice cream without one. I think you can put your mixture in a container and remember to stir it up every hour or so until you like the consistency. I'll link to the ice cream maker I use if you're in the market for one.

While full fat yogurt, and heavy cream might require you to make an extra purchase, they are staples in my fridge. When making frozen yogurt or ice cream, it is important to get enough fat into the mixture, so because yogurt usually doesn't contain that much fat, it is important to add a bit more so that when your mixture freezes you don't get an unpleasant mouthfeel. The same is true with sugar. This recipe doesn't have any extra sugar, because we are using very sugary jam. A lot of people think of frozen yogurt as something healthy, but it really isn't. That doesn't mean you shouldn't indulge, but I'm not going to pretend like it's any healthier than a bowl of ice cream. Indulge in moderation (or not - I have zero moderation when it comes to ice cream). As always, if you try one of these recipes let me know! I'd love to see your posts on social media tagged #aforagerspantry, or drop a link in the comments!

Strawberry Lemon Frozen Yogurt with Chamomile

Ingredients

One 500ml container of lemon yogurt with as high a fat percentage as you can find.
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cups strawberry chamomile jam or preserves

Takes 30 minutes, serves 4.

Instructions

Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl trying to incorporate as little air as you can.
Freeze mixture according to your ice cream maker's instructions, or using whatever method you prefer.
Scoop out of the bowl of your ice cream maker, and freeze in a container for a couple hours if you want it to be harder than soft-serve consistency. I like using a bread pan for this purpose because of the shape, but I'm looking for something that has a lid without being plastic.

To support my blogging endeavours, this post contains affiliate links from which I receive a small commission if you make a purchase. Every product linked here is one I have used personally and would recommend based on my experience.

Meals From the Pantry - Sourdough Doughnuts

March 09, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

I think this recipe will be a fitting post after long break from posting anything here. February was a really full month, and I found myself working on lots of projects and finding little time to write about them. Currently were are working on moving around all our furniture which takes a while for us, because we usually need to live in a space for a while to really get a feel for if something is working or not. It gets annoying, but it means we deep clean fairly frequently, so that's not all bad.

I wanted to share my recipe for sourdough doughnuts as part of my "Meals From the Pantry" series. If you've been following along you'll know that the main idea of these recipes is to use what you have on hand. This one is a little bit different, because I know not everyone has a sourdough starter, but it's something that takes common ingredients, very little work, and adds a whole lot of depth to your baking options. Mine lies dormant in my fridge for a month at a time, sometimes, and it's still kicking. A while back I reviewed the book Sourdough: Slow Bread for Busy People, and I really recommend it as a great resource for demystifying the process of baking this way. I'm not getting any benefit from saying that - this is just a book that I've found helpful and wanted to let you know about. Anyone can do this - if I can fit it into my unpredictable schedule you can for sure!

The other reason I like this recipe and feel it fits the topic, is that it helps me use up my jam. I have made a lot of jam over the past few years, and we haven't eaten through it at the rate I've made it. I had some peach ginger jam I made an embarrassing amount of years ago which was still completely safe to eat, but a bit past its prime in terms of peak flavour. Combined with the tang of the sourdough, and the sweet-bitter flavour of the caramel sauce they were glazed with it still worked perfectly. I also feel that I need to give a bit of a disclaimer, that I am not an expert at doing this, but I am sharing my method which is sometimes a bit less technical than most bakers, but part of the beauty of sourdough baking is that it can be forgiving that way. It can also be a bit random, and everyone's starters are different, so sometimes it takes practice to really understand what you are working with.

So the basic process to go from sourdough starter to doughnuts, is that you take a bit of your starter, mix it with some more flour, sugar, and water, and allow that to ferment for about four hours. Below you can see it just mixed, and after the full fermentation where it is all relaxed and bubbly.

After that, you mix that with some milk until there are no lumps remaining. Add eggs, more sugar and flour, salt, and butter. You can also optionally flavour your dough with lemon zest, or other things like that. I tried it once this way, but I prefer the dough more plain so you don't have to contend with the lemon when you are planning your filling and glaze. As much as we treat lemon and vanilla as basic flavours, they don't actually always go with everything.

This rests on your counter for several hours. You can choose to put it in the fridge at this point if you need to take a break or you know your timing will be awkward leading up to when you will be able to fry them. For me this slowed the process down way too much for my timeline, and changed the quality of the dough when I finally had to finish them. You want this dough to be completely risen so that the finished dough balls are light and fluffy and float in the oil. If they are underdone they will sink and/or not cook completely all the way through. When this happened to me I started flattening them out really thin before I put them in the oil, but this did change the texture quite a bit. Still pretty tasty, but the fluffier version was my favourite.

When the dough is risen, completely fluffy and when you poke it it feels soft and airy, you'll want to form it into round dough balls. These should be about 70 grams each, but the size is really up to you. Leave these to rise for another four hours until they are very soft. When placed in the oil they should float because they are so filled with air.

After you feel they are ready, heat up your oil - I used a 50/50 mix of coconut oil and home rendered lard because it was what I had enough of, and I really liked how it turned out. You want at least two inches between the floating doughnut and the bottom of the pan. Unfortunately I don't have a thermometer, so I put a little piece of dough in when I thought it was hot enough and watched to see if it got all crazy bubbly (which I took to mean it was ready - I know, very unscientific, but it worked). It's a good idea to consider your first doughnut as a sacrifice to checking the oil temperature and making sure you've got your cooking times right. A few minutes on each side is all it should take. Remember that the dough will continue cooking for a little bit even after you take them out due to the residual heat, and that the structure seems to firm up a bit as it cools, so wait a little while before you cut into it to check if it cooked all the way through. If you are happy with it, start cooking the rest. Keep in mind that you might need to adjust your oil temperature part of the way through since the oil will get hotter as you fry with it.

When the doughnuts are completely cool cut a small slit in the sides. Prepare a piping bag with a metal tip by filling it with whatever jam (or other filling you like - I used rose hip curd blended into whipped cream once and that was fantastic) you will be using. Insert the tip into the slit, and gently squeeze. You should be able to feel the doughnut getting full so you know when to stop. This might take a bit of practice. Glaze the doughnuts with whatever you like, but for the jam I was using I chose to make a runny caramel sauce.

Caramel from scratch is simple, and made with really basic ingredients, but you need to pay close attention to what you are doing. The point between sugar being perfect, and sugar being burnt is very fine, so this is not the time to multitask! Watch that sugar like a hawk. Pour it over the doughnuts when it is still hot. I imagine a caramel glaze would be delicious with just about any flavour of jam.

Sourdough Doughnuts with Jam Filling and Caramel Glaze

Ingredients

25 g sourdough starter
90 g flour
30 g sugar
90 g warm water

Takes 2 days, yields 12 - 20 doughnuts.

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients together and let sit in a covered bowl (cling wrap, beeswax cloth, or a damp tea towel are useful here) to ferment for four hours in a warm place.

    Making the Doughnuts
    For the Doughnuts
    All the pre-made starter
150 g milk
3 eggs
100 g sugar
6 g salt
500 g flour
120 g butter

      Instructions
    Blend the starter in the milk until there are no lumps remaining.  If you are in a hurry, first warm the bowl and the milk gently (but not to scalding) so that the fermentation becomes more active sooner.
Add the sugar, and eggs, and then mix in the flour.  Knead until the dough is smooth, and elastic.  This should be about 5 minutes.  The dough will be really stiff at this point, so I recommend a mixer with a dough hook if you have one. 
Cube the butter, and knead it into the dough at this point until you can't see any more lumps.
At this point take a look at the dough.  It should be a fairly tacky dough, but if it is still too wet to work with, you can add a little more flour at this point.  Go lightly, though because adding too much will really take away from your finished product.  The wetter it can be while still being workable the better.
Place this dough in a covered bowl and allow to ferment for 6 - 8 hours (at this point if you need a break - for even up to a day or two - you can put the dough in the fridge to slow down fermentation until you have time to work on them again), or until you can see that the dough has doubled in size, and when you touch it it feels airy and springy. 
Divide the dough and shape into balls that weigh around 70 grams each.  This will give you smallish doughnuts and bring you close to the 20 amount stated in the yield at the beginning of the recipe.  I found that smaller was better as sourdough is a more filling bread than one leavened with commercial yeast.  Since we are also filling these and glazing them they are pretty rich so this is the size I liked.  Feel free to change it up if you want fewer, larger doughnuts.
Place the dough balls on a lightly flowered surface and cover with plastic, or a (warm) wet tea towel and allow to ferment in a warm place for another four hours, or until the doughnuts have again doubled and feel very light and airy when touched.
Heat enough oil in a fryer, or heavy pot to allow two inches of oil between the doughnuts and the bottom of the pot.  If it sizzles and bubbles when you put a small piece of dough in it is probably ready.  
Fry one doughnut for 3 - 4 minutes on one side, and 2 minutes on the second side until evenly browned.  Leave it on the counter for a minute or two, and then cut to test if your time is correct.  You could probably also use a cake tester or something similar, but I wanted to see what the structure of the crumb looked like inside.  It should be light and pillowy.
Fry the rest of your doughnuts!

    Filling the Doughnuts
Ingredients
    1 Pint sized (500 ml) jar of jam

  Instructions
    When the doughnuts are completely cool cut a small slit in the side of each one.
Prepare a piping bag and metal tip with your jam, and fill all the doughnuts.

    Making the Glaze
For the Caramel Glaze
    1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup salted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream

  Instructions
    Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan to start dissolving and place on medium high heat.  Don't stir it again, but if you need to you can gently swirl to help the sugar dissolve evenly. Watch it very closely.  It will take a while to change colour, but once it starts it happens fast.  
When the sugar has reached a deep amber colour, add the butter.  It will bubble up a lot.  Just keep stirring until it is melted in.
Slowly drizzle the cream in a this point.  It will bubble up like crazy again.  Keep whisking until you have a smooth sauce.
Drizzle or brush the sauce on the doughnuts while it is still hot and very liquid.

  

Meals from the Pantry: Pumpkin Apple Blender Muffins

January 30, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

Last year in my garden I had quite a few winter squash volunteer from my compost. I also bought several at the farmers' market, and there are still a few hanging around on my counter. Since I don't want it to keep looking like I'm decorating for halloween, I wanted to think up some recipes to use them up. Maybe you're like me and you still have pumpkins hanging around, or maybe you have a leftover can of pumpkin puree in the cupboard. If not, don't worry since this will work with whatever fruit you have that needs using up. I think it would be awesome with bananas and that is actually what I am going to try next since I am one of those people who have a shelf full in the freezer.

I also had some vanilla flavoured kefir that needed to be used up, so I used that, but milk or even yogurt would work just as well.

Pumpkin Apple Blender Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup roasted pumpkin
1 apple
1/4 cup oil
1 large egg
1 cup vanilla kefir (can sub yogurt, milk, or sour cream)
1/2 cup brown sugar (increase to 1/2 cup if using unsweetened dairy)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger (fresh or ground)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups flour

Takes 35 min, yields 1 dozen muffins.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Starting with the liquid ingredients, put all the ingredients except the flour in the blender and blend on high until everything is one cohesive liquid.
Pour the blended mixture in a bowl, and gently mix the flour in until just incorporated.
Fill muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted comes out clean.

Meals from the Pantry: Roasted Vegetable Soup

January 19, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

The recipe I am posting about today came about because I had quite a few odds and ends in my crisper drawer that needed to be used as soon as possible. I love soup a lot, but I don't always have broth on hand. I do often make my own, but there is often a gap between when I run out and when I remember to make some more. For me this is a barrier, because I don't usually like buying stock from the store. Since I know I can make a much better product, I don't usually buy it, but then I still don't end up making it right away either.

Maybe this is only me, but sometimes I just want my soup now. Like instant noodles now. I am so very happy to say that thanks to Marisa over at Food in Jars, I have found a happy medium between homemade quality, and cup of noodles fast. Her recipe is basically a salt preserved veggie paste that lives in your fridge and gives you soup whenever you want it. It's one teaspoon per cup of boiling water, and there you go! This is something I always have in my fridge now. It's one of my favourite pantry staples, and something that gets even more interesting in flavour the older it gets. Her recipe uses dried tomatoes, but what I had on hand was dried wild mushrooms "foraged" (read purchased) from a shopping trip to Costco, of all places, so I substituted them and it was a really delicious choice. Find her recipe here if you would like to make some (I highly recommend it)!

Due to a lack of stock in the freezer, I turned to this soup concentrate paste to transform my wilting veggies into a beautiful, deeply flavoured soup! Use anything you have around. I had a bunch of root veggies, and some other things, but really the sky is the limit here. Roasted tomato soup with this method would be amazing, or maybe you have some lettuce, or kale that you didn't quite make it through - throw that in there (although add it in right after the roasting step). The only thing I would consider is making sure the final colour of your soup will be appetizing. The sky is technically the limit, but you might want to think twice about using your kale and tomatoes - for example - together since red and green when combined make grey. It will still be perfectly edible, and probably tasty, but it won't be winning any beauty pageants! Chop everything up into large chunks, and roast in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about an hour, or until it is all fork tender, and getting caramelized around the edges. Your next step is to bend, add liquid, season it, and simmer the whole thing until you are happy with it! Feel free to also use regular broth or stock in this recipe if that is what you have and it will taste just as delicious!

Your yield for this recipe will vary a lot, since it is just using up whatever you have around. Don't worry about specific amounts. What I used in the above photo (baking tray is the largest size, for reference) made enough soup for about 5 servings.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Yield will vary

Miscellaneous vegetables (I used parsnips, carrots, onion, garlic, leeks, celeriac, and sunchokes)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Juice from One Lemon
6 cups of water (or substitute stock/broth and omit the soup base)
6 teaspoons soup base

Chop vegetables into large pieces (peeling is not necessary, but if your veggies are a little bit past their prime it might be a good idea), and arrange in a single layer on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about an hour. Veggies should be fork tender, and lots of caramelization is a good thing (ie: they might look quite dark, or even a bit burnt around the edges, but that will add flavour).
Transfer vegetables and a cup or two of water into a blender or food processor, and purée until smooth. (This is when you add your leafy greens if you are going to be using them).
Pour the whole mix into a pot on medium heat (or a slow cooker if you want to do it ahead of time) and add the rest of the water a cup at a time until you like the consistency. Whisk in the soup base, taste, and season with additional salt and pepper as desired. The soup base is very salty so definitely taste before adding any more salt.
When you are happy with the consistency and overall flavour, stir in the lemon juice. Soup is ready to eat as soon as it is warmed through.